So a lot in The Last of Us Part 2 has modified throughout the game’s improvement.
As is the case with any massive game as we speak, just a few of the scenes and characters in The Last of Us: Part 2 seem otherwise within the closing game than they had been initially envisioned. Some received moved to a unique a part of the story, and others had been minimize completely.
In an interview with The Washington Post, co-writer and director Neil Druckmann and co-writer Halley Gross shared just a little bit about what was left on the slicing room ground, and what wanted to vary for the storytelling to be simpler.
Spoilers past this level.
Esther is a lady Joel dated within the years between the 2 games. She was truly imagined to be talked about in a cut epilogue to the first game, however that scene was minimize. In The Last of Us Part 2, Naughty Dog determined to try to convey her into the story once more with the flashback scene the place Tommy teaches Ellie long-range capturing with a sniper rifle. Esther is alleged to have lived two hours away from Jackson, so the plan was for Joel and Ellie to check out her in that a part of the game.
The developer additionally deliberate an entire setup the place the pair would discover Esther’s home overrun by contaminated, and race to see if she’s alright. Soon after they arrive, they discover that she’s been bitten. Joel realises what’s about to occur, so he asks Ellie to get some water from the close by river. This is while you hear a gun shot and the scene ends.
“And you don’t know whether Esther killed herself or if Joel put a bullet in her head, but you know that this was going to happen,” defined Halley Gross. “That two adults were making a decision and they were going to try to protect Ellie as much as they could.”
Ultimately, nevertheless, Naughty Dog realised that there gained’t be any time to ascertain Esther’s character earlier than she’s killed off. “Even up until toward the end of the game, we had like a love letter from Esther in his house,” Gross added.
Naughty Dog deliberate for gamers to see the Scar island earlier than it was all burned down. Originally, a part of Ellie’s journey by way of Seattle would have concerned yet one more day the place she will get shipwrecked on the island’s shore and should discover a technique to go away and get again to the theatre. In the ultimate game, we solely go to the island in Abby’s part of the story, as it’s being invaded and destroyed.
The concept was to humanise the Scars, by exhibiting everybody with their households and family members, going about their each day lives.
“It was really cool. The designers had a lot of great elements to it, but we ended up scrapping it because it didn’t move her story along narratively. It was like cool gameplay, cool setup, did something really nice in terms of expounding on the enemy,” Gross revealed.
The scene the place Ellie and Dina bond over smoking marijuana received modified pretty late into improvement, too. Naughty Dog initially needed this scene to be a form of exposition dump. The problem was that gamers may have solely simply met Dina, however she’s imagined to have identified Ellie for years.
The developer wrote and shot an entire monologue the place Ellie explains that she doesn’t know the place Dina stands, or whether or not she’s not truly concerned about her (following the kiss), however minimize it simply as animators had been attending to work on it. A truncated model of the scene is what ended up being within the closing game, the place the 2 share a second that just about goes over the identical beat.
“We’re constantly using conflict and finding ways to use conflict as exposition and conflict to bring characters together. And initially, the scene that we wrote just over-steered this conflict that exists between the two girls. Ellie was too hurt by the kiss that happened in that festival and was worried of where Dina stood. And it just became melodramatic, the first time we shot that scene,” Druckmann defined.
“It felt like we needed to start from this more playful, softer side,” he added.
Finally, Naughty Dog initially deliberate for the dance scene to be playable. “Our designers built out these amazing games, and you could mix drinks, and you could pretend to be a Clicker and chase little kids using Listen Mode,” Gross recalled.
Keeping in thoughts the place within the story that scene exhibits up, it didn’t make sense for it to be playable, in keeping with Gross, contemplating the second that follows it with Joel and Ellie’s dialog on the porch. It may need made sense earlier than when that scene opened the game, however not anymore.
That a part of the game would have additionally launched a brand new character, Cat, Ellie’s ex-girlfriend who’s talked about briefly in a dialog with Dina. Cat is accountable for Ellie’s tattoos, in fact, and taking part in as Ellie, we had been initially supposed to talk together with her on our technique to the dance. Cat is described as “sassy”
“It was another thing that we cut because it wasn’t progressing anything,” she added. “It was just like, again, really cool world-building, but that kissing scene also bounced around through the game a lot. We used to open the whole thing on Ellie and Joel at the dance.”
If you’re on the lookout for extra perception into the game’s manufacturing, we lately revealed a narrative the place Sam White received to spend one week on the game’s set.
